TRITONS HOPE TO TURN FORTUNES AROUND UP NORTHUC San Diego (4-8, 2-6 MPSF) flies north to the Bay Area on Friday morning, Feb. 8, to complete a four-match road stretch in conference play over the weekend. The Tritons, who have dropped five straight Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) tilts since a 2-1 league start, take on No. 11 Pacific (4-3, 2-3 MPSF) at the Alex G. Spanos Center in Stockton later on Friday night. UCSD will then head over to Maples Pavilion in Palo Alto to battle the fourth-ranked Stanford Cardinal (7-3, 4-3 MPSF) on Saturday night, Feb. 9. First serve for both contests is set for 7 p.m. The Tritons have not faced either opponent yet this year, with the midway point of the regular season approaching. UCSD returns home to RIMAC Arena the following weekend, playing host to UC Santa Barbara and defending national champion UC Irvine, Feb. 15-16.

MATCH COVERAGEAll UCSD home matches inside RIMAC Arena again this season feature a live online video stream as well as live stats, both free of charge. Fans can access live video and live stats from the Schedule/Results tab of the men's volleyball page at UCSDtritons.com. Both of this week's road matches will have live stats. Friday's contest in Stockton can be watched and heard live online, free of charge courtesy of Pacific Athletics, through Stretch Internet and USTREAM, respectively.

TRITONS DROP FIRST TWO MATCHES OF CURRENT ROAD STRETCHUCSD suffered a tough road trip last weekend, falling in four sets at UC Santa Barbara (28-26, 23-25, 27-25 and 25-19) on Friday, Feb. 1, before getting swept at No. 5 UCLA (25-10, 33-31 and 25-22) on Saturday, Feb. 2. In their second trip to Santa Barbara after last month's season-opening Asics Invitational, the Tritons got career highs of a match-high 19 kills and seven digs from sophomore outside hitter Nick Iorfino, but it wasn't enough to get past the Gauchos. Iorfino led three UCSD players in double-figure kills, with Cheyne Hayes (14) and Carl Eberts (12) joining him. Chase Frishman had eight digs and Fred Stahl seven blocks. At UCLA, Eberts put down a team-high 10 kills and sophomore libero Kevin McGinnis collected a match-high 11 digs. The result marked UCSD's second defeat to the Bruins in 2013, with one meeting left in La Jolla on March 29.

TRITONS RECEIVING VOTES IN AVCA POLLUCSD dropped out of the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Division I-II Men's Coaches Top 15 Poll, released on Monday, Feb. 4. The Tritons had moved up in each of the first three installments of the listing after they were among five teams receiving votes just outside of the preseason edition of the rankings, and were last at No. 13.

EBERTS APPROACHING EXCLUSIVE 1000-KILL CLUBIn his final season of college volleyball, senior outside hitter Carl Eberts needs 111 kills to become just the fifth player in program history to reach the 1,000-kill plateau. The product of Huntington Beach and Edison High School produced 89 kills as a redshirt freshman in 2010, before leading the squad in 2011 and 2012 with 326 and 335 kills, respectively. Matching either of those two campaigns would put Eberts firmly in UCSD's 1000-Kill Club, joining current members and former teammates Jason Spangler (1,491; 2007-10) and Frank Fritsch (1,403; 2007-10), as well as Jim Waller (1,301; 2001-04) and former Triton women's volleyball head coach (2005-09) and current LMU women's coach Tom Black (1,268; 1993-96). Eberts once again paces the team through 12 matches this season with 139 kills (3.23/set). He ranks 13th in the conference.

VETERAN DUO MOVING UP ALL-TIME CHARTSCarl Eberts and Chase Frishman are each moving up separate all-time lists in the UCSD men's volleyball record book. Eberts has moved into the top-10 in kills and digs, currently ninth in both with 889 and 442, respectively. He is eighth in attacks (2,113), and also looking to enter the all-time list in the aces (48; six short) category. Frishman, meanwhile, is fifth with 536 digs, and is 71 away from matching Chris Mortimer (2000-03) for second all-time in program history.

SCOUTING PACIFICPacific (4-3, 2-3 MPSF) is coming off of a 3-1 non-conference win over UC Santa Cruz last Friday night and is 3-1 at home this season. The No. 11 Tigers' MPSF wins have come at USC (3-1) and at home against UC Santa Barbara (3-2). Senior outside hitter Taylor Hughes paces Pacific with 4.11 kills per set, third-best in the MPSF. He was named the Sports Imports/AVCA National Player of the Week on Jan. 29. Junior libero Javier Caceres is tops in the conference at 2.93 digs per set. UOP holds a 33-6 advantage in the all-time series, and has won four straight with back-to-back season sweeps in 2011 and 2012. The last three decisions have been of the 3-0 variety. Prior to this stretch, the Tritons had taken six consecutive meetings, with sweeps in 2008, 2009 and 2010. That run included three successive triumphs at Alex G. Spanos Center, the latest one coming on March 6, 2010 (3-1). Joe Wortmann is in his 19th season as the Pacific head coach.

SCOUTING STANFORDFourth-ranked Stanford is 7-3 overall and 4-3 in the MPSF, sitting in fifth place. Stanford split a pair of five-set thrillers at Hawai'i last weekend after winning back-to-back home matches over UCLA and UC Santa Barbara. The Cardinal are a perfect 6-0 in Palo Alto in 2013. Junior outside hitter Brian Cook is putting down a team-best 4.08 kills per set, fourth-best in the MPSF. James Shaw is the regular Stanford setter (10.32 assists/set) as a true freshman, while also producing a team-best 2.00 digs per set. Steven Irvin averages 3.00 kills and 1.73 digs per set. Stanford leads the all-time series, 39-3, and has won three straight meetings. UCSD's last success over Stanford, however, came at Maples Pavilion, in convincing fashion, 3-0. That result was achieved on Feb. 11, 2011, when the Tritons were ranked No. 12 and Stanford was at No. 4 as the defending national champion. Set scores were 25-18, 30-28 and 25-16 as UCSD was in control throughout, hitting .477 as a team to just .182 for Stanford. Then-sophomore Carl Eberts produced a match-high 15 kills. John Kosty, the 2010 AVCA Division I-II National Coach of the Year, is in his seventh season in charge of the Cardinal.

IN THE MPSFThrough matches played Feb. 3, Chase Frishman is fifth in the MPSF in digs at 2.25 per set and Carl Eberts is 13th in kills (3.23/set) and 15th in digs (1.79/set) and points (3.56/set). Garrett Dempsey (8.26/set) and Mike Brunsting (3.76/set) are 13th and 15th, respectively, in assists. UCSD is up to fifth in team digs (9.11/set) and ninth in assists (11.17/set).

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